


Forcing the Consequences

by Chi-chi-chimaera (gestalt1)



Series: Transformers Fanfiction [4]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Rape Recovery, Sexual Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-13 09:38:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17485727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gestalt1/pseuds/Chi-chi-chimaera
Summary: After being brutally attacked by the mechs he thought were his heroes, First Aid has to come to terms with what was done to him, and try and find some kind of justice in a system that seems stacked against him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is essentially a sequel to 'Hero Worship', but that's under a members-only code on here. If you're not able to see it, it basically just depicts what happened to First Aid immediately before the start of this fic. This is set pre-Delphi and pre-Pova. The Wreckers line up is Springer, Impactor, Roadbuster, Sandstorm, Rack'n'Ruin and Whirl.

Ambulon had been left alone at the clinic the night before. Everyone else was out celebrating the Autobot victory in driving the Decepticons off Tartarus III, but he hadn't wanted to drown himself in engex and pretend that he was happy. He _was_ , he supposed, but his defection was still too raw and recent. Yes he was glad that his new faction had triumphed, but he couldn't bring himself to toast the deactivations of mechs who might have once been his friends. There was at least as much sadness as joy in this for him. So he had gone to his berth early, alone. Moping.

Ambulon had almost expected a steady stream of overcharged mechs to present themselves at the clinic door with various minor injuries overnight, but things had been surprisingly quiet. He had recharged well and deeply. First Aid hadn't come back to the room they shared at the clinic at all, and Pharma was still out at the field hospital making sure that things were packed up properly before the inevitable call to ship out to the next theatre of the war. He hadn't thought much of the former fact at the time. In fact, he had been glad for his friend, assuming the reason was that Aid had found some nice mech to 'face him through a wall. More power to him; FIrst Aid deserved something good after the grim slog through the horrors of battlefield injuries which had been their stock-in-trade this past deci-vorn.

Rising the next morning and finding that Aid still hadn't returned was slightly surprising, but Ambulon assumed he would turn up soon enough refreshed and relaxed. He went outside to see what Tartarus III's turbulent weather patterns were doing today and froze in the doorway. There was something lying in the muddy street. Something the shape and size of a mech wrapped up in a dull grey mesh-weave blanket. Ambulon forced a few deep vents through his fans to calm his systems and made himself approach. Surely it wasn't a corpse. Surely...

As he got closer his olfactory sensors detected a sharp, unforgettable smell. Energon. Fresh or old, all medics soon learned to identify that particular scent. He crouched down and ran a sensor ping over the shape, not willing to touch just yet. There were life signs. This was a mech, but they weren't deactivated - at least not yet. He grabbed for the edge of the blanket, sure now that this was someone in desperate need of medical attention - perhaps someone who had been trying to reach the clinic but who had collapsed before they were able to get there - and pulled it aside to reveal familiar faceplates, optics shuttered in stasis.

"First Aid..." Ambulon said, very quietly, shock and panic warring in his spark. What had happened here? His friend didn't move. The stink of energon and something else Ambulon couldn't identify was strong. "First Aid!" He shouted, patting Aid's faceplates in lieu of trying to shake him out of stasis. He didn't know how bad his injuries were. "Aid, please, wake up!"

Gradually First Aid came out of stasis, optics flaring and whirring online. He looked up at Ambulon in confusion. "What's going on?" he asked. His voice was weak, something about it strained.

"Aid, can you move?" Ambulon asked him, aware that his own voice was shaky. He had to get First Aid somewhere safe so he could work out what had happened and how to fix it. His processor was already whirring through possibilities, each more unlikely than the last. One thing was clear at least. His assumption about where Aid had been last night had been desperately wrong.

"Not sure..." First Aid said.

"I'm going to get help. We need to get you inside." It was still early and after the festivities of the night before most mechs would still be in recharge, but Ambulon would break down whatever doors he had to if he needed help to get his friend into the clinic.

First Aid's optics flared with sudden panic. "No! Wait!" He started to move, struggling to get his arms under him "I can... I can manage."

Worried, Ambulon let him lean on him as Aid managed to get up onto his pedes, plating clamped down tight in obvious pain. The mesh-weave blanket around him fell open slightly and Ambulon caught a flash of a thigh caked in dried energon. His fuel pump churned and he looked away. That didn't help. He could see a puddle of mingled, unidentifiable fluids had seeped through the blanket and into the dirt of the street where First Aid had been lying. The pinkish-purple liquid turned pearlescent like the rainbow of an oil slick where the light hit it. Energon and... something else.

"Keep leaning on me," he said, helping First Aid get an arm around his shoulders. It looked like Aid could barely stand, but even so he forced himself to take small, halting steps towards the door. Ambulon tried to focus on getting him inside and not on his hidden injuries. His friend was moving in a certain way, a limping walk that he had seen a few times before when he had been on the other side of their war. He was no innocent. He knew what it looked like when someone was trying not to jarr their array. He had a horrible suspicion about what might have happened. He really wished he was wrong about it, but... he was fairly certain he was right. Given the obvious violence and injuries... someone had raped First Aid.

First Aid was venting hard and his limbs were trembling by the time they made it inside the walls of the clinic. Ambulon guided him over to one of the medical slabs and helped him up onto it, Aid wincing the whole way. "Do you want to lie down again?" Ambulon asked him nervously. He had never actually had to deal with the aftermath of anything like this before. He didn't know how he should act. What he should say. "Or you could just stay sitting, whatever's better..."

First Aid didn't move, and he didn't meet Ambulon's optics either. His plating rattled very faintly, and he clutched the blanket more tightly around him.

Ambulon went over to the storage units by the wall and threw them open, staring blankly inside at the rows of neatly packaged medical supplies. What did he need here? How was he even going to bring up the topic of what had happened? Should he let Aid know what he suspected? Let him bring it up of his own accord? Ask outright or obliquely, or... He set about grabbing absorbable cloths and cleaning fluid, thinking he could at least set to work on washing away whatever was still dried and caked onto First Aid's plating.

When he turned back around, First Aid had let the mesh-weave blanket fall off of his shoulders, though it still pooled around his waist hiding his thighs and his array. There were thin trails of dried energon slicking the cables of his neck and the plating below his collar struts. Ambulon stifled the curse that threatened to escape, and approached cautiously. Sharp dentae had left deep bite marks on his friend, crimping metal. He couldn't... he wouldn't be able to simply buff that out. Yes it was nothing that self-repair couldn't handle, but to have to wear those marks for the cycles it would take to heal...

Ambulon steadied himself. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked cautiously. First Aid shook his helm, still not looking at him.

Ambulon tore open the packet of cleaning fluid, wet a cloth, and raised it with care to one of the bites. "I'm just going to..." He trailed off. Words were failing him here. He started to rub gently. Aid flinched away from his touch and he stopped at once, servo hanging in mid-air. After a moment First Aid leaned back in, then turned just enough to let his helm fall onto Ambulon's shoulder, hiding his faceplates against his neck. He was shaking, plating rattling even harder than before. Scorching heat welled up against Ambulon's own plating and he realised that Aid was crying. The hot plasma from his optics blistered Ambulon's paint, but it didn't really hurt. He stood there unmoving, unsure of what to do.

"I didn't... I didn't want..." First Aid said, before his voice disintegrated into static.

Anger, fierce and hot and cold all at once, was rising in Ambulon's spark. "Who did this to you?" he asked, straining to keep his voice level.

Aid shook his helm. "I can't... you wouldn't believe it. I... I don't know if _I_ can believe it..."

His instinct was to reach up and draw his friend into the comfort of a hug, but he didn't know if that might not just make things worse. Ambulon stayed still, not daring to move. First Aid kept on weeping against his shoulder. Eventually he asked, "Could I... could I run a scan? I need to know how bad..."

First Aid nodded, and held out his wrist. Moving slowly, Ambulon drew out a diagnostic cable and plugged it into the medical port there. He could sense Aid's presence behind heavy firewalls, but none of his emotions seeped through. Perhaps that was a relief. It would be too easy to lose himself in the storm that had to be everything First Aid was feeling right now. He sent a ping through their connection, a polite request for access to diagnostic data, and First Aid let him through just enough.

Error messages popped up thick and fast, and Ambulon had to force himself not to pull away as his own systems panicked instinctively. When he had calmed himself enough to actually analyse what he was seeing, he had to resist the same urge for a new, different reason. Primus, this was so much worse than he had been expecting. He wanted to disengage from the link so that he could turn away and purge, but there was no place for his own distress here. First Aid needed him.

Energon levels were at 28% and still falling, even though Aid's tanks had been topped up to full last night after a long day of repairs. Damage reports pinging from multiple systems explained where it had gone. Intake, aft port and... and worst of all, his valve. Energon lines had been torn or in some cases severed. Delicate internal mesh had been pulled apart. _Dozens_ of valve callipers were reporting that they were no longer functional, either from being bent out of shape or from being fractured completely. There was even... oh Primus above... even stress-warping pulling Aid's pelvic struts out of alignment.

Even knowing what must have happened... What kind of monsters had done this? It couldn't be Decepticons, though he knew of several within their ranks who would be capable of it. The 'cons had been kicked off the planet. That only left Autobots. It seemed beyond belief that Autobots could do this... and yet here it was. The reality of it right in front of him.

"I know it's bad," First Aid whispered, his voice filtering through from outside the medical hook-up. "I can feel that it is."

Ambulon must have been quiet for too long. That, or he was letting something leak out past his own firewalls. "I'm going to need to call Pharma," he said. "I... this is more than I know how to fix. I'm not the surgeon that he is..."

First Aid shuddered. "I don't want him to see me like this." A ghost of his distress filtered through their connection. Ambulon could sympathise - it wasn't just the mere fact of what had happened. Pharma might be talented, but their senior medic had no bed-side manner to speak of. Still, surely even _he_ could be sensitive when it came to something like this?

"Aid, please," he said. "I _have_ to call him. You... there's still lines leaking."

"I know, I know," Aid said, sounding frustrated and... and half-desperate. "Just... I need to get _clean_."

Ambulon heard the whisper of moving mesh-weave and looked down. First Aid had pulled the blanket aside to expose his panel. Ambulon had been half-prepared to find it missing, torn off to leave his array open and exposed, but it was still there. It wasn't sitting quite right though, and that pearlescent mixture of energon and transfluid had seeped from around the seams to run down onto his thighs. It didn't fully disguise the deep marks and scrapes of paint transfers. Some part of Ambulon's processor catalogued the colours. Dirty ochre, brown, purple, yellow, orange... too many for it to have been just one mech.

"I don't think I can make it as far as the washrack," First Aid admitted. "And it _hurts_..."

"Will you let me try and get the worst of it off here?" Ambulon asked.

Aid nodded. "Please." There was still plasma overflowing around his optics, a constant trickle that welled and drifted into the air.

"The moment you want me to stop, just say." Ambulon reached out nervously with his damp cloth. It was slow work. First Aid would wince in pain if he pressed too hard, but the dried fluid had hardened now into a thick crust that _needed_ a little bit of scrubbing to get it off. Ambulon worked from the outside in. That damaged array was the last thing he wanted to mess with right now.

"Once I'm done I'm going to set up an energon drip for you," he said as he worked, trying to sound soothing, to distract them both from what he was doing. "You need to top up your tanks, and..."

"And I can't drink right now," Aid finished for him. Given the damage to his fuel tubing, yes, Ambulon didn't say out loud. Aid's voice still sounded rough and weak. Like his vocaliser had been strained. Ambulon imagined him screaming and then desperately tried to stop imagining. No. No, he didn't want to think about that.

The worst of the mess was gone. Ambulon straightened up, noting with a dull spark that there was still a trickle of fresh pink oozing out from First Aid's panel seams. "Let's get that drip in," he said. "Then I'm going to comm Pharma." He was dreading having to explain this to him.

Ambulon still had so many questions. Mostly about who was responsible for this. There would be time for that later though. Right now, Aid's repairs had to be his first priority.

He had thought he wouldn't have to see things like this after leaving the Decepticons. He was horrified to find that he'd been wrong.

\----

First Aid could hear the muffled sound of Ambulon's conversation with Pharma through the thin wall. If he strained his audial receptors he might have been able to make out the words, but he didn't want to know. Bad enough... bad enough anyone seeing him like this. Not just Pharma. Ambulon as well. He wanted nothing more than to hide, to crawl into some corner of the world and stay there.

The drip in his arm tickled. It fed energon into him as quickly as his systems could handle it. His tanks filled slowly, input counteracting the slow, steady leak of his injuries. He could feel a distant, unpleasant sensation inside him as it bathed his internals. He was trying _not_ to think about the sticky warmth between his legs, a distraction beyond the pain. If he moved at all he could feel it behind his panel. He dreaded the idea of what might come out if he opened it.

It was easier just to lie here and feel empty. Blank and numb. Still there were thoughts behind that layer of doing his very best not to care. His processor lashed itself twisting from pushing away the memories  to trying to relive them in every tiny detail against his will. It was too much. He wanted it to stop. He wanted to go back into stasis.

That wasn't going to happen, at least not until Pharma got here.

It wasn't as though his memories came in order anyway. He remembered how fuzzy and muddled he had felt, and why. The drug in his drink at the bar. It hadn't kicked in properly until after Impactor took him back to their ship, otherwise he might have realised that something was wrong and refused to go with him. Whatever it was seemed to have affected how his memories had been encoded, although not enough to give him the debatable mercy of forgetting what they had done to him entirely.

Flashes and images. That's what he had. The heave of heavy frames pressed against his own, panting roaring engines, fans whining red-hot, heated vents and servos wandering over his plating, pain, the drag and grind of a spike inside him, laughter ringing in his audials...

No, no, he wished he could stop thinking about it.

It all seemed too unreal, and too-real despite that. Something that shouldn't have been possible, yet had written itself into his very frame. He wanted to be in a world where things like this didn't happen, a world where things made sense. Not this reality where his heroes were monsters hiding behind the masks of their reputation.

A door hissed open, breaking him from his thoughts. Ambulon came back through, twisting his servos together nervously.

"Pharma said he'll come," he said. "I need to go and meet him though. He wants help carrying some things, parts and such from the field hospital."

First Aid nodded. It made sense. The field hospital had been far better outfitted than this little clinic meant to tend to the lesser ills of the support teams living in this little settlement. Ambulon came over and dropped a small comm unit onto the slab next to him.

"If _anything at all_ happens, call me," he said. "We'll be back as fast as we can."

The brief conversation had been a distraction, but it was over too quickly. Once Ambulon had left, there was nothing but the darkness of his thoughts once again.

How many other people had the Wreckers done this to? He remembered Impactor's deep baritone boasting about the prisoners he had forced himself on. Roadbuster referencing the other 'groupies' that Impactor had brought back for them to rape and abuse. Why did nobody know about any of this? Why had it never come out? Hadn't the 'cons said something during their subsequent interrogations? Maybe they had. Maybe everyone thought they were just lying to make the Wreckers look bad. What about the other victims...?

First Aid hugged the mesh-weave blanket to himself, knowing it was a perverse sort of thing to take comfort in but needing to hold on to _something_. He found that he was angry at the Wrecker's other victims, though that was hardly fair of him. He just didn't understand why they hadn't... if they had just _told_ someone, the Wreckers would have been behind bars and they wouldn't have been able to... No. No, he wasn't being realistic. It wasn't their fault. The only people to blame were the ones who had actually done this.

Besides, was Aid going to tell someone in authority what had happened to him?

His spark quailed at the thought of talking to _anyone_. If he spoke about it, it would be the same as reliving it again, and doing that every time someone needed him to repeat his story. Who would even handle an accusation like that? The Wreckers reported directly to Autobot High Command, which would mean going straight to the top. Could First Aid really imagine himself on a comm-line to... to Prowl, or Ultra Magnus, or _Optimus Prime_ _himself_ saying... saying he had been raped. By the Autobot's best line of defence against the Decepticons.

What would they do? What was procedure when it came to something like that? Would there be a trial? Didn't the Code have something in it about the accused having the right to face their accuser? What if he had to stand in front of a whole courtroom of people and look the Wreckers in the optics and admit what they had done to him.

No. No, no, no, he couldn't.

Would the Wreckers even care what he said? They hadn't seemed to give a second thought to doing this to him. They had to know he was going to need repairs. That _someone_ was going to _have_ to know what had happened to Aid. But they hadn't made the slightest effort to be gentle or to hide what they had done to him. In fact all the damage had only seemed to charge them up more, particularly Roadbuster...

No, he didn't want to think about that. He kept his optics shuttered and tried to hold back the sobs that threatened to rise inside him. He was alone here. There was no giant, brutal form looming over him, no servos on his plating, nothing forcing its way inside his valve...

His system pinged with a fresh alert. New damage. He was tempted to ignore it like he had done with all the others, but... he realised he had wrapped his arms around himself and was digging his fingers into the seams of the plating of his upper arms. He had managed to put enough force through one of the seams to tear one of the small energon lines that ran through there. There was pain, but at least it was somewhere other than his array. It was... it had centred him. Brought him back to the here and now.

That was dangerous. He was a medic. He knew that. But...

Someone opened the door of the clinic and stepped inside. Aid looked over, startled panic flooding his frame with the need to react, but it was only Pharma and Ambulon. They were back sooner than he had expected... or, checking his chronometer, he had been caught up in his thoughts way longer than he had realised. That probably wasn't good either.

Pharma set down the case he had been carrying and came over to First Aid's med-slab. The expression on his faceplates was unreadable.

"Ambulon told me about what happened," he said. "He shared the diagnostics, but I would prefer to see them for myself."

First Aid held out his wrist again. He wasn't sure how he had been expecting Pharma to react, but this cool, calm, getting down to business was... bearable. If the surgeon had tried to force out some sort of sympathetic words Aid felt like he would just have started crying again. He didn't want to do that in front of Pharma of all people. It would be humiliating.

Pharma plugged in, and his optics took on that distant, far-away look as he immersed himself in Aid's code. Aid lay back and let his processor go as blank as possible, ignoring the foreign presence inside his system. Pharma made a thoughtful noise.

"There is a lot to do," he said. "Significant repairs, and a significant period of recovery after that to allow for self-repair and for new parts to integrate."

"New parts?" Aid asked, with a certain amount of trepidation.

"Yes, it's not worth trying to put your valve back together," Pharma said, as casually as if he had been describing a new coat of paint. "I'll build you a new one. I have the base parts, and it will be an interesting technical challenge. It will feel a bit different, but perhaps that's for the best as well."

Ambulon reset his vocaliser, looking slightly appalled. First Aid would have felt the same way as his friend if he'd heard Pharma talking to another patient like this, but oddly he didn't mind it on this side of it. It stripped away some of the shame and embarrassment of it, to talk about it so openly. Pharma was treating this as something cold and clinical. He wasn't handling Aid like something delicate and broken, much as Aid himself felt that way.

"When will you start?" he asked.

"There's no point in waiting," Pharma said. "I will address the easier repairs first of all; seal off the leaks around your intake and stitch the mesh back up. You'll be on a drip diet for a deca-cycle while that heals up. Then the damaged lines around your aft port, replace the seal, remove the damaged valve and pinch off the lines that feed it which I'll hook the new part into..." He went through it like he was ticking off a list or thinking out loud. First Aid stopped listening; he didn't want to hear all these details. He had been ignoring his own error messages because he didn't want to know the full extent of what the Wreckers had done to him. Let Pharma do what was needed. He just wanted to get better, to not be in pain anymore.

"There is one thing I _do_ need to address with you," Pharma said, sounding a little impatient. Aid got the idea this might be the second time he had said it.

"Oh, yes?" he replied, to show he was actually listening now.

"When I take the old valve out, I'll have the option of taking CNA samples," Pharma said. "Do you want me to? Are you intending to seek prosecution for this?"

First Aid squirmed. He hadn't... decided about that. Still, surely if he did go ahead with it he would need the evidence? "Yes," he said finally. "I want them to pay for this." The sudden venom in his voice surprised him; he hadn't meant to be quite as vehement as that.

"I assume they were Autobots," Pharma said, as he busied himself getting the space ready to operate. "They are likely to come up on our database when I log the samples." Aid understood what he was implying. It wasn't avoidable; Pharma would see who had done this, so if Aid felt more comfortable simply telling him rather than letting him find out that way, then he should do so.

Only it wouldn't just be Pharma hearing it if he said something now. Ambulon was fussing around with his own preparations, put into the position of playing scrub nurse by the lack of other trained medics around here. His frequent troubled glances in First Aid's direction hadn't been missed, and it was bothering him. He appreciated his friend's concern, but... he didn't want Ambulon treating him differently after all this.

"I'm not... I don't want to talk about it," he said, hesitating over the words. "Not yet."

Pharma shrugged. It didn't seem that it bothered him either way. First Aid couldn't tell whether his lack of concern was genuine, or simply a very good act. "Are they important individuals?" he asked.

First Aid froze, which was probably answer enough in itself. Pharma nodded to himself, as though he had been expecting that answer.

"You need to be careful," he said. "Any concept of civilisation fell apart a long time ago. This is war, and bad things happen all the time. I would be cautious about imagining justice is something that still exists for any of us."

"How can you say something like that?" Ambulon burst out, apparently too appalled by Pharma's words to pretend he hadn't been intently listening. "The Autobots have a Code, and it doesn't permit this kind of behaviour..."

"Don't pretend to an innocence you don't have," Pharma replied. "It isn't becoming of anyone, not least a former Decepticon. Didn't you have tales about all the terrible things our side has done to the poor oppressed 'cons over the vorns?"

"That's just propaganda," Ambulon insisted, but with a doubt that hadn't been there before.

"Is it?" Pharma asked, and turned back to First Aid. "One last thing before I put you back into stasis. Were your contraceptive protocols active last night?"

The question took him entirely off guard. He accessed his memory core frantically, searching back through program logs for the answer to it. As a medic rather than a frontliner he didn't have them enabled by default. If he had been functioning at his full capacity then obviously he would have activated the protocols, but he _hadn't_ been at full capacity. With a sinking spark, he found no trace of the program having been booted up any time in the last cycle.

"No," he said, in a very small voice.

"I'll flush your gestation tank out while I'm in there then," Pharma said, still nothing but business.

"Okay," First Aid said. He felt flat and empty. Pharma was probably right about the consequences of speaking up anyway. The Wreckers were important to the war effort. So were medics, but one medic against their whole team? How did that calculation come out? Not with him on top he bet. That had to be the reason no-one else had come forward in the past.

Still some little ember of defiance kept burning in his spark. Not now, but once he had recovered, once he felt stronger inside and out, maybe he should put that calculation to the test. If not for his own sake, then for the sake of anyone else who might be taken in by everything the Wreckers pretended to be.

"I'm ready," he said.

Pharma hooked back in to him, and send the codes that would induce a medical stasis. It felt nothing like the drugs. It was quick and easy, a simple slide into quiet, still darkness with his processor clear the whole way. He relaxed. There was nothing to worry about in here.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to pursue justice is not going to be easy, as Pharma is already starting to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings this chapter for Roadbuster's POV - his head is not a nice place.

Pharma turned the damaged, extracted parts over in his servos thoughtfully while he waited for the computer to finish processing the CNA samples he had just uploaded. Cleaned of energon and other internal fluids it reminded him of the clinical specimens back at the Iacon Medical Academy, the institution where he had trained. Holograms and mock-ups were one thing, but there was nothing that stuck in the memory core so well as something that had once performed its function inside an actual mech. That was one of the benefits of Iacon over its competitors. Of course, none of those examples of injury and illness and malfunction had come from someone that he personally knew.

This wouldn't be the first time Pharma had dealt with the aftermath of a rape. It was just another weapon of war in the end, and one he knew both sides stooped to on occasion. In a way First Aid had been lucky he had been around. The Iacon Academy lectures hadn't flinched from showing their students the worst that the Cybertronian race were capable of doing to each other, and how to fix the physical consequences. Other institutions had been more specialised. Less broad in their curriculums. Pharma actually knew what he was doing when it came to arrays; some of his colleagues were little more than engineers. He wouldn't trust their servos anywhere delicate.

Seen from the exterior like this, the intricate mechanisms that made up a valve were exposed for their construction to be appreciated. Interlocking layers of flexible callipers cupped the inner mesh, with interposed piping and reservoirs for lubricant. In this case however, little of that natural artistry remained. Even the organ's very structural integrity was compromised. It felt like it was ready to fall apart in his servos.

Getting emotional about a patient wasn't like him, wasn't particularly professional either when doing the job called for a certain amount of distance, but Pharma found that he was genuinely angry about this. First Aid was a medic. He was  _ his _ subordinate. That implied, under  _ his _ protection. Most mechs knew better than to anger their medics. The rank and file of the Autobot army especially knew how much their medics did for them, and the potential consequences of rousing their ire. Laying servos on one like this...

The computer pinged an alert. Pharma looked up to see an error message flashing at him.  _ Invalid request. No results returned. _

Well. Wasn't that convenient for the perpetrators? Suspiciously so. Pharma wasn't surprised that something like this had happened, although he hadn't expected the culprits to have arranged for some kind of embargo on running transfluid-based searches for their CNA. Still, only a mech or group of mechs who thought themselves above the petty consequences of violating a medic would dare to have done this to Aid, and that meant power. Enough power to pervert the course of justice, such as it was. Pharma had been prepared for it to be difficult though. Transfluid wasn't the only potential source of CNA. Any mech using that amount of force during interface scored their own plating, not just that of their victim. The traces of metal and paint chromeonanites were not as easy to identify, but it was worth trying.

Pharma loaded up the sparse sample and sat back to wait. First Aid wasn't ready to talk in any depth about what had been done to him yet, but as his superior officer it was Pharma's responsibility to escalate this up the command chain. Given this obstruction, that meant  _ all _ the way up. Ratchet was the current Chief Medical Officer, so it meant talking to him. That was... acceptable.

His relationship with Ratchet always seemed more complicated every time they saw each other. It was off and on without much pattern, and the pair of them didn't always share the same idea of what their exact status was. Pharma was fairly sure they were 'off', but if he and Ratchet spent any length of time together that wasn't going to stay the case. It could make things awkward, particularly if there were accusations of favouritism in all this.

As if Pharma actually cared about First Aid  _ personally _ . He did his best not to care about  _ anyone _ , other than Ratchet.

The computer pinged again, the results much quicker to come back this time around. Only one CNA source to look for, rather than four. 70% certainty of a match, but also no other potential donor candidates identified on the system. So this was... almost certain.

Pharma glared up at the profile on the screen with his dentae bared. Roadbuster. The name was familiar. He generally didn't bother to feel disgusted by the darkness that war had made of their species, but when it came to this mech he would make an exception.

The memories still felt fresh in his core, even though it had been some time ago. He and Ratchet had been working together then, before Ratchet had been appointed CMO. They had been called in to perform autopsies for a number of cadets who had been found dead of what was obviously foul play. They had been MTOs, newly sparked into their frames, fast-tracking through training in preparation for their first campaign. They hadn't deserved to die, having known so little of life. Or, to take the more pragmatic view, the army had been cheated out of getting their value out of them.

The findings had been unpleasant. Every frame wracked and warped with the stress of over-transformation, the primary cause of death in every case. However some had also been raped with a violence that made the act into a second contributing factor. Identifying the culprit had been easier than anyone had a right to hope, though not easy enough to save any but one of the most recent victims. The cadet's commanding officer, Roadbuster.

Pharma and Ratchet hadn't been party to the investigation afterwards. Their jobs in the whole sordid mess had been over. Still both of them had kept an audial out for the results of the trial. Pharma had been troubled by the results - was fairly sure Ratchet had been too. The official story was that Roadbuster had been suffering from some kind of severe processor glitch that had him hearing the voice of Mortilus and believing he was a vessel for the god amongst the living. He had been sent to some kind of rehabilitation facility which had released him after a few vorns claiming that their treatment had been entirely successful. Roadbuster had joined the Wreckers not long after that.

The timeline wasn't right for the story, not if anyone expected a trained medical professional to believe that Roadbuster had been fully recovered by the time they let him out. It was just too soon; real glitches of that kind were deeply embedded things, running through hundreds of lines of code, and notoriously difficult to get out without an entire personality rewrite - which simply wasn't the  _ ethical _ thing to do these days. Either it had been a falsehood from the start, or Roadbuster had been discharged before the code could have been fully scrubbed, which meant it could reoccur at any moment.

Either way it was deeply suspicious, and stank of the manipulation of  _ someone _ with power. Had Roadbuster been released solely to join the Wreckers?

Pharma vented out. These were not questions with answers. The question that  _ did _ now have an answer was who had been responsible for First Aid's assault. Roadbuster, which meant the other mechs involved were almost certainly the other Wreckers. In one sense the evidence in front of him could be good for Aid's legal case. Roadbuster had a history of horrifically violent rape, which would make this whole story easier to believe. On the other, someone had already shown they were willing to put the safety of others at risk because of how useful Roadbuster was to them.

No, he couldn't imagine this turning out well for First Aid at all. However the decision wasn't up to him. He could only present Aid with the facts, and see if he wanted this taken to Ratchet.

\----

The sofa needed to be replaced. Impactor had been pretty emphatic about that last night, cornering Roadbuster about it when he got back from dropping off the toy.  _ He  _ wouldn't have minded about the mess they - well, mostly Roadbuster himself - had left on it, but Impactor was more picky. 'Sides, even if Impactor hadn't objected, Springer would have. It would'a spoiled that whole thing he had going on. The thing where he pretended that if he didn't see it then nothing bad was happening. Energon and transfluid over the main rec-room couch counted as seeing it. So, in the time-honoured tradition of Wreckers cleaning up their own messes, Roadbuster had been left to work out how to get a new one in without it arousing suspicion.

He glared at the couch, at the big splotch right in the centre of it. He supposed the mesh-weave had been rubbing a bit thin in some places, but there was still plenty of use in it. It wasn't like they were organics and had to worry about... about tiny organic virus things? Whatever it was that meant squishies treated their own insides like they were hazardous when they got on the outside. Besides, he kinda liked how it smelled now. That thick energon stink... it always got his motor running, on the battlefield or off. The sharp edge to it set his circuits buzzing and charge flickering through his array. He let out a soft rumble, and ran digits over the seams of his panel.

That toy had been a good one too. Squirming and begging real pretty, screaming all nice when the others were ploughing his aft. Sure, he'd gone into stasis halfway through Roadbuster's turn, but his valve had still been so very tight. He was gonna be self-servicing to memories of last night for a while, that was for sure, when he couldn't be bothered chasing Whirl down for a frag anyway.

Mind you, no-one said he couldn't keep a little souvenir.

Where did they keep the knives around here? They were getting rid of the couch anyway, so it wasn't like anyone had grounds to complain he was ruining it if he cut out the part of the meshweave that had been stained by all of the energon spilling from the toy's valve. It took a bit of digging to actually find a blade of the right kinda size for what he planned to do, and by the time he got back to the room someone else was there. Springer, to be precise. He was looking at the sofa like it was bothering him. Roadbuster smirked. Was this making his shell of denial start to crack? Poor soft little mech.

"Scuse me," he said, approaching and flipping the knife over in his servo.

"What are you doing?" Springer asked. Dread and horror mixed together in his voice.

"Cleaning up," Roadbuster replied, crouching down and getting to work. The mesh-weave cut easily, the padding beneath spilling out, adhered to the weave in places where the energon had dried and stuck them together.

Springer opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, but he seemed to think better of it. Roadbuster wasn't paying much attention to him anyway. The next time he looked up, he was gone. He was so pathetic. He knew exactly what they were doing. If he wanted them to stop he should try and make them stop. Then at least they could have the argument out with fists rather than heavy silences.

Roadbuster took the square of fabric back to his quarters. He already knew just where it belonged, alongside his other trinkets marking good memories in front of his shrine to Mortilus. His god might not talk to him anymore, but that was okay. He had worshipped him long before Mortilus first started to honour him with his voice, and he would never break that faith. He was the vessel that spread the seed of death and despair, who anointed the unworthy by force. He had let the toy live and now it would know that there was no Guiding Hand protecting it from the world. There was only strength, and death, and Mortilus.

Once he had set things up the way he liked it, he went to put a call in to the local commissary. Removing his souvenir had been a good idea for more than one reason, he saw now. If the incriminating parts of the couch were missing and it looked like it had been destroyed by some of their roughhousing, there should be no problem with getting it taken away and a replacement charged to their account.

Job done, Roadmaster could relax. They would be heading off-world soon, as soon as they got their next set of orders. He was looking forward to another fight. The time in between was always too long and too dull. Life should be spent in glorious slaughter and the wielding of power over others. Still, he had plenty of memories to sustain him.

\----

There was still a faint, dull ache in his frame when First Aid came out of stasis, but the great, throbbing agony of before was gone. Thank Primus. This was more familiar, the honest settling pain of self-repair starting its work. He felt almost relaxed up until the moment his processor came fully back online and his current memory logs loaded. Dread started to rise once more. This formless sense of terrible things awaiting him, looming over him... only he knew well enough what he was afraid of.

Aid raised his helm to look around, testing the effect of the small movement on his frame. This wasn't the first time he had been injured, and badly enough to need medical stasis, but he  _ was _ a non-combatant. His wounds had never been very serious. Plating and some of the more exterior components had been replaced over the vorns, but never anything so integral, so... intimate. The discomfort of the new welds healing there, and in his intake was not quite familiar. The same, and yet just different enough to catch him off-guard.

"You're awake!" Ambulon sounded happy, yet still hesitant. "How do you feel?"

First Aid sat all the way up, still keeping his movements slow and steady. "Everything seems to be okay," he said cautiously. His systems were running smoothly. There had been no pings of errors or inefficiencies from the new components. They appeared to have integrated properly.

"Pharma said things went about as well as could be expected," Ambulon told him. He fidgeted slightly where he stood. Discomfort was almost a physical barrier between them.

Aid knew Ambulon had assisted with the operation. It must have been so deeply strange for him; having his servos inside of a friend. The typical distancing medics used with their patients could only go so far. It had once been standard policy that a medic never treated someone that they knew personally, but the war had destroyed that particular social norm just as it had so many others.

"You're still meant to be resting though," Ambulon added.

"So, am I confined to this berth?" First Aid asked, trying to make light of the situation. Even the attempt felt horrible, awkward, false. This couldn't just be the simple back and forth of conversation. Not with the weight of... everything behind it.

"No, you can get up and about," Ambulon said. "Just nothing strenuous. Take it easy." He couldn't quite meet Aid's optics still.

Aid nodded and levered himself off the medical slab, landing lightly on his pedes. He felt unsteady for a moment, a hiccup of his gyros, but it quickly passed. He pinged a check to his fuel tank. It returned at 94% with stable and expected rates of consumption. Good. That was... good. He tried to feel reassured. Maybe if he checked again... No, of course nothing had changed in the last astro-second. It was fine. It was all fine.

"Should I go get Pharma?" Ambulon asked. "He was running the samples."

First Aid nodded again, not trusting his vocaliser with words. He could feel the stress building up inside his circuits as he started to have to  _ think _ about reality again, and he was worried that whatever he said would simply come out as static. There was so much looming up in his future. So much he needed to do. So much he was going to have to face and... and to possibly relive when he had to actually  _ tell _ people and...

It felt like too much. Did he really think he could do this?

Well what other choice was there? Pretend like it had never happened? That was almost tempting, but... every time he saw any of those names appear in a report or a bulletin or a broadcast...

Ambulon hurried away. Aid's thoughts kept spinning. Yes, the physical damage had been repaired, but the welds were barely set. It had been a scant planetary rotation since  _ it _ had happened. Pharma had to know who had done it by now. What if  _ he _ wanted to know all of the details about how it had happened? He might need it before they could report it to anyone, and then Aid would have to come out and admit how naive and trusting he had been. How he had walked right into their ship and not thought anything of it.

_ "You came in here." _ He heard the words rising from his memory core, loud in his audials as though they had been freshly spoken.  _ "Walked in of your own free will. That means we get to do whatever we like." _ He shuddered, a clatter of plating. No, that wasn't the way things worked. That wasn't how  _ consent _ worked. It was just... Maybe some people might think like that too. Might think it should have been obvious what was going to happen. That he had only himself to blame.

He had gone with Impactor willingly after all. He had  _ wanted _ him, had been  _ aching  _ to frag him, before he'd known what Impactor had actually been intending, before it had become clear that the rest of the Wreckers were going to have their turns as well.

Maybe this  _ was _ his fault. Maybe he  _ was _ the stupid little groupie, just like they'd said. Shouldn't it have been obvious that someone like Impactor wouldn't want someone ordinary and insignificant like him unless there was a catch to it?

"First Aid?"

That was Pharma talking. Aid cycled his optics open to see that he and Ambulon were back. He hoped none of his thoughts were showing in his faceplates.

"I need to see your diagnostic data," Pharma told him, a little impatiently. Aid held out his wrist, shuttering himself behind his firewalls. He didn't want the senior medic to see any of  _ that _ . Pharma linked in. "Everything appears acceptable," he said, after a few moments. "You already know my instructions about your recovery. Nothing you shouldn't already be aware of as a medic."

"So... what now?" First Aid asked quietly.

"I should be asking you that question," Pharma replied.

"The samples...?" Aid couldn't bring himself to finish the question. Was Pharma looking at him differently now? He just couldn't tell.

"There was an issue with the transfluid samples," Pharma told him. There was an undertone of annoyance; one of the few emotions Pharma usually allowed himself to show, although it was more typically aimed at injured mechs who didn't do what he told them to. It wasn't aimed at Aid though. "There was a block on the system, preventing the analysis from returning results. Outside interference, I'm certain of it."

That horrible creeping dread started to well up in Aid's processor again. "So you're saying there's no real evidence that it was them except for my word? They... they just have to deny it and..."

"Not quite," Pharma replied, cutting off First Aid's growing panic. "I managed to find an alternative match, which got me a result on one of them at least." He shot a glance at Ambulon. "I can assume the identities of the other mechs based on that. The question is what you want me to do with the information." He spoke very calmly, without emotion. It was impossible to get a read on what he thought of any of this, of what he thought Aid should do outside of the advice he had offered before.

This was difficult. It was painful to think about any of this, and it scared him to even guess at what the whole process would involve, but First Aid hadn't changed his mind. He wanted  _ everyone _ to know what monsters the Wreckers really were. Still he felt an urge to justify himself.

"It's not just about doing this for me," he said. "They basically admitted to me that I'm far from the first person they've done this to. No-one else has ever come forward about it though, and I'm sure they have their own reasons for that - good ones probably. But if I do the same... more bots are going to get hurt. To... to get raped. So  _ someone  _ has to do something.  _ Someone _ has to stop them. If not me, then who?"

Pharma reset his optics. "Yes, I know," he said. "You're  _ not _ the first."

"What do you mean?" Aid asked.

"One of your rapists has a history of this sort of crime. I... worked on some of his previous victims." Something about the way he said that sent a chill right down to First Aid's spark. Then came the anger. If Pharma knew about this then why...

"They... then why is he still walking around a free mech?" he demanded. "Why was he allowed to be a Wr..." He cut himself off quickly, not even daring to glance over at Ambulon to see if he had picked up on that and put it all together. "Why did this  _ happen _ to me?"

"For the same reason I couldn't run those CNA samples," Pharma told him. "Because some mechs appear to be more useful where they are rather than facing rightful justice. Because leaving a few traumatised mechs in their wake is a price that  _ someone _ is willing to pay for their skills."

Aid leaned back against the berth and shuttered his optics. He felt weak. Useless. Powerless. The processor-ghost of laughter pressed in all around him. He did his best to let it pass over him.

"Even... even if it's futile, say I want to try anyway," he said. "How do I do that? Don't I owe it to myself anyway, as well as all the other poor mechs out there?"

Pharma didn't reply immediately. Then he vented out and said, "Perhaps you have more of a chance than most at least. Being a medic has its own value, and we can probably leverage that. The first step would be taking this to Ratchet."

First Aid felt a jolt of emotion, difficult to untangle. Fear again, shame, shock... a ball of pure distress that forced a brief whine of static out of his vocaliser. "I... our CMO? Is that really necessary?" He hated how pathetic he sounded. What had he been expecting? Surely it was better than some of the  _ other _ potential options amongst Autobot High Command?

"If you change your mind about this there's no shame..." Ambulon started to say, clearly aiming for reassuring but just coming over as anxious.

"No!" Aid said sharply.

"If you wish for a... relatively impartial intermediary, I am willing to be that for you," Pharma said.

"Th... thank you." Aid hadn't expected it but he was certainly grateful for it.

"I know Ratchet," Pharma said. "It may be better that at least  _ some  _ of the account comes directly from you to avoid the appearance of bias, but we can minimise that. Besides, there are details that he will need to know in order to investigate this, and I suspect you won't want to repeat yourself. I can stick to the medically-provable facts."

"When do you want to call him?" Aid asked. He could do this. He could. Ratchet would believe him. He would be sympathetic, kind about it... he was their CMO after all. That was what a medic was supposed to be.

"I'll message him now to set up a time for a proper discussion. He will have his own commitments, naturally."

There was some time then. To decide what he was going to say, and how to say it. First Aid forced air through his vents in a deep, calming motion. He could do this. He could.


End file.
